Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Today marks—and we mark as a Senate—one year since the fall of Kabul and the end of the war in Afghanistan. For the people of Afghanistan, the time between the invasion of their nation and that moment when the last plane took off from the tarmac of Kabul airport marked two decades wherein the tyranny of a regime guilty of horrendous human rights abuses was replaced by the shadow of occupation. As we as a parliament reflect on the one-year anniversary since the end of that war, we must do so actively, seeking to take responsibility, seeking to offer apology and seeking to translate apology into urgent action.

Let's be really clear. In entering into the war in Afghanistan alongside the United States, Australia committed a terrible mistake, a mistake of judgement, which led to the death of tens of thousands and the harm of so many more. Our failure in those moments in the aftermath of 9/11 to confront our American friends calmly but firmly and demand that the global action taken in response to those events be proportionate and within the boundaries of international law, and clear in its purpose, cost the lives not only of Australian serving personnel but of so many Afghans. We poured away life, we poured away resources and we took so much from the Afghan people during this war, which came on the back of so many decades of occupation by foreign powers.

In doing this, we made the justification to ourselves that we were supporting invasion and occupation in order to liberate the people of Afghanistan from tyranny. Yet not once in all of those decades did we reflect upon the fact that our ally in that cause, the United States, was to its very core one of the key reasons for the existence of the tyrannical regime which was the Taliban in the 1990s. Never was there a moment to own and reflect on the reality that it was American support of the mujaheddin during the Soviet-Afghan War that gave birth to the Taliban.

From this space of ignorance and unwillingness to work collectively and within the boundaries of international law to react to the events of 9/11, we ended up staying alongside the United States in an occupation which did incredible damage to the Afghan people, undermined institutions and left a legacy of destruction and division which they will have to manage for generations to come. We not only perpetrated this damage in our entry and our occupation; we then after 20 years exited in one of the most diabolically mishandled, fundamentally inhumane moments in Australian political history, leaving behind countless people who, despite our presence alongside occupying forces which daily took the lives of Afghans, and despite the fact that our special forces, the 'red beards', took the lives of—murdered—innocent civilians and disabled Afghans, worked with our forces in an attempt to build something better. We left them behind. We failed them, proving in that moment that our so-called dedication to the people of Afghanistan had never been much more than a political spin; proving that it didn't even go skin deep, because, when things got tough, we got out and we left them.

And what have we left them in? We have left them in a humanitarian disaster which we contributed to. I would like to read to the Senate just a few of the stories of individuals who are right now in Kabul and throughout Afghanistan living in the ruins that we left behind, trying to rebuild their lives in the chaos. Ansar, an IT officer in Kabul, sent to my yesterday the following words:

Life in Afghanistan is a burden, something to just bear. Neither do we have human rights nor civic rights, we are deprived of all basic rights. Every day that goes by, life under Taliban rule breaks my spirit and weakens my consciousness. We feel abandoned and on our own.

I inform the Senate that, in the next passage, I will be making reference to issues of suicide and sexual violence, but I feel it is necessary. This comes from an individual who has experienced these crimes firsthand on the ground:

There have been reports of girls and women being detained and then raped in prisons. In the last few days, there was widespread coverage of the case of a girl who was first detained and then raped by a prominent Taliban commander. The victim's name is Elaha and the perpetrators name is Saeed Khosty, who forced the girl to marry him. Saeed was constantly beating and torturing her. Then Saeed divorced her, claiming she made blasphemous comments and that he has evidence. There is now concern that she will be tried for blasphemy. If proven, and this may be through coercion, she may face death.

It has been well reported that women's employment and access to education have become extraordinarily limited under the return of the Taliban regime, as it has been reported that women are unable to move without the presence of a male companion.

Human rights abuses of the most heinous nature are reported daily, and it is incumbent upon us as a nation to take our share of responsibility, as the reality is that these crimes are being perpetrated, because for 20 years, instead of working with the people of Afghanistan, as we should have done, to rebuild and to address the issues facing their nation, we sat alongside occupying forces for political reasons—and then we left for political reasons. And we have now seen fit as a nation to cast ourselves free of even the thought of the people of Afghanistan.

I once again reiterate the Greens call for emergency humanitarian intakes to ensure that those who served and supported the work that was done are brought to safety; for accountability for those who, during the war, committed such heinous crimes against the people of Afghanistan; and so to accountability for those officials and members of government who, in the full knowledge of the imminent evacuation of Kabul, failed to get those people to safety.